


Every Kiss a Scar

by AceQueenKing



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Kissing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-01-30 23:08:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12663336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: Six kisses that shaped the future Garrus and Shepard's lives.Part 1:The first time he kisses her properly is the night before they die.Part 2:When they come back alive, he kisses her breathless.





	1. Chapter 1

For two people facing a suicide mission, they take things damnably slow. Garrus knows this; regrets it yet somehow treasures it. He’s never been in a relationship where there’s anything but the physical, so this – the long conversations, the stolen moments where his shoulder can just barely  _brush_  against hers in the dining area  – is new territory.  _Welcome_  territory.

He holds her hand in the gunnery – the only place on this ship where he’s guaranteed there are no bugs, no change of the Illusive Man watching them, listening to them – and it feels…amazing. There’s an undercurrent of nervousness he’s not felt in a simple touch since the old reach and flexibility days, but Shepard is so much  _more_  than a nameless scout; she’s -

“Garrus,  can I ask you a favor?” She asks. Garrus watches the scars on her face, the way they move and glow; she hasn’t quite taken a rocket to the face, but she’s lived through trauma, all the same. They both have. Their scars are nearly in the same places, and both tell the same story:  _We’ve walked through hell. We survived._  And he’s naive enough to hope that maybe – maybe – they can do that again.

“Garrus?” She reaches out, touches his arm; he jolts after a second, realizes that he’s been silent far too long, and he shakes his head, chases out all the worries and hopes and dreams, and nods.

“Of course, Shepard.” He wonders if he will ever live long enough to use her first name; he’s tried it out, thinking of her as  _Ophelia_ , but it doesn’t feel right, not quite yet. It’s an intimacy he doesn’t quite trust himself enough with yet, not on a Cerberus ship.

“I just…If things go south…” She looks away, her hands fiddling. It’s a nervous reaction, a bit of human body language that’s a little less  _mystifying_  than most of her movements because turians share it, the same obsessive desire to try to knot the world back together with their fingers, to take control of the uncontrollable. He dares enough to let his hand land on her shoulder and tries hard not to notice how foreign his large, bumpy fingers look across her pale, smooth flesh.

“Can you send my mom word, let her know…?” She asks, and he’s blown away by that request, by the idea of maybe  _he’ll_  survive when  _she_  won’t. He knows it isn’t true, knows he’d die for her and die without any regrets about doing so. But he knows, too, that this won’t give her comfort, so he curls his hand tighter and nods.

“Sure.” It’s a simple word but enough. She relaxes slowly, her body shifting from stiff to…well, slightly less stiff. Her hands stop fidgeting at least. He spends a minute in enjoyable small-talk with her, watching her little human body sway and move, and he knows, suddenly, that it will never matter if they’re physically incompatible because this- _this_  is enough.

It doesn’t stop him from being a nervous wreck though; by the time the moment arrives, he’s sweating, his plates chafing, a million questions rushing through his mind. What if they’re incompatible? It’s not a big deal to him, but it might be to her. What if she changes her mind? What if this is the last bit of happiness they will ever possibly have? He tries to study the mating rituals, though humans, damnably, don’t seem to have any of the clear social rules that turians do for serious relationships. He tries to follow her customs anyway, to the best he can: he spends a small fortune buying a wine they can both drink, a holo-tape of the human music best conducive to this sort of thing.

And when it arrives, when he sees her, when all the assurances he tried to surround himself with fail (the wine is  _awful_ , and the music worse, and she’s more amused than anything else), she reaches out, and grabs his scars, and pulls him close, and he understands what she’s saying.  _I choose you._

He lowers his head to hers, presses his forehead to hers in a mark of intimacy, among his people, and he’s moved beyond all power when she presses back. She’s a relative novice who cannot know the rituals of his people (unless, of course, she’s done research, like he has, because of course, of course, she would; of course,  _Shepard_  would be prepared for any situation), and he gasps, because he knows, now, that she means for things to go right, no matter what they have to do.

And if both of them want it, their –  _whatever-the-hell-this-is_ – can’t fail, can it? So he abandons fear, at least for the next few hours, and presses his mouth-plates to hers. It’s awkward, the pieces not quite fitting together right – it’s hard to kiss without lips – but she doesn’t mind the bumbling and grabs his hands, and things go so, so  _right_ , and he prays –  _prays_  – to all the deities he doesn’t believe in, that they be granted another chance after this, that this beginning isn’t also an end.

He isn’t so naive as to expect they’ll get it. He prepares for the worst, and hopes, as always, to be pleasantly surprised.


	2. Chapter 2

_When they come back alive, he kisses her breathless._

And realizes, in that moment, that he’s just a bit in love with her. The seed of something has taken root in him; he realizes he’s grown to depend on her. He keeps that revelation to himself though, fearful of saying too much, too soon, and instead just places his arm around the small of her back as they sigh with relief in a room filled with empty coffins.

They have time. Now – they  _have_  time.

She takes off her helmet, and he watches her hair tumble down her shoulders, the strange human curtain that swishes and sways after her. It’s memorizing, exotic; nothing on Palaven has hair, and barely anything on the Citadel does. He watches it maybe a second too long because Miranda clears her throat behind him, but he doesn’t turn away from Shepard.

He tightens his hand on her waist instead.

Cerberus, he thinks, can’t do anything to them now; she’s told the Illusive Man to go to hell, and Miranda can pack it up or decide to stay, her call, but he’s not going to be afraid of her, or Cerberus, not anymore. Instead, he takes his own long helmet off, relinquishing control of his hold on her for just one moment before reclaiming it, gently steering her to face him.

“Garrus, what -?” She asks, but he just shakes his head before darting down, pressing his mouth-plates to hers. She freezes for a moment, and he wonders if he’s gone too far. But then Jack mutters  _gross_  and Joker lets out a whoop and Tali and Kasumi both clap, and even Miranda only clears her throat again, and best of all Shepard places her small (but  _strong)_ arms around his neck and holds on tight.

He doesn’t dare say it yet – but he thinks it, thinks it with every pore, every molecule of him –  _I love you_ , he thinks.  _I love you._ He doesn’t want to ruin a good thing by going too fast, but – he thinks – at least they have time. There’s still the thread of the reapers hanging overhead, but they’re together, they’re not going to be separated again, and he can take things slow.

But then, of course, Aratoht happens, and Shepard is taken away by her own damn people, and the universe proves him wrong  _again._ They never had time after all.

Joker holds out hope that they can convince the Alliance to spring her, and Garrus hopes he’s right but expects him to be wrong. His only regret is never saying the three words that mattered when he had a chance.  
  
He keeps himself busy, though, fighting Shephard’s fight; he’s on Palaven, he’s with his father, he’s with the Primarch, somehow. Shepard gives him the courage to do these things, and his breath does not falter. He will be her voice in her stead, and nothing - not even facing up to his own failures - can stop him from being with her, in spirit if not in deed.

He lays awake on a bunk on Manae, his limbs hurting from setting up camps - just in case. He looks at Palaven, so big and bright from her small moon, and wonders if Shepard is looking up at her moon. He knows Earth has one now, from all the holos he has been watching, trying to learn her culture, her people.

He wonders if she is doing the same in prison, her fingers tracing over books about old gods and battles and wars. 

He presses his hand to his mouth-plates and waves it at the moon one night when he is alone.  _Ophelia_ , he thinks, _I love you. I miss you._  

He practices the words each night, in her language and his own - and when Shepard gets out, because, being Shepard, she  _will_  get out - he will tell her, and she will know and that - that will be all he has ever wanted. 


End file.
